We are approaching the end of Movement Control Order (MCO) since it first started on 18 March 2020 due to COVID-19 outbreak that affects the worldwide population. After 80 days of MCO, many things have changed, many people are affected and we are adapting to the changes as what we call it as the “new norms”.
Based on our experience in the market research industry for the past 10 years, who would have thought that online interview will become the “in-thing” to adjust to the new way of interviewing people. We used to have face-to-face interviews as a common approach for the qualitative study. However, during this MCO, we have personally completed more than 80 online interviews, communicated virtually with consumers to gauge their thoughts and ideas in their home setting.
Surprisingly, consumers were more open and laidback with online interview as if it is not something foreign to them. It is true that ‘home is where the heart is’, as we can see consumers were very comfortable expressing and sharing their opinion on the discussed topic.
Nevertheless, be it face-to-face interviews or online interviews, both have their pros and cons depending on the objective that we want to achieve. What changes have you experienced during this MCO? How long do you think the trend of conducting online interview will last?
